I knew the RTX 5070 was tricking me. Parked subsequent to the extravagant silliness of the two-grand RTX 5090, this £539 / $549 graphics card appeared like a really agreeable deal, providing all the identical DLSS 4 and Multi Body Technology as its larger, pricier brothers. Additionally, an improve to the RTX 4070 Tremendous, a GPU that might deal with 4K with out trying too misplaced in a premium 1080p rig. Tragically, although, the RTX 5070 breaks a sacred covenant, a mutual understanding between PC house owners and components makers that’s held sturdy for many years: for those who purchase a brand new model of a factor, it needs to be sooner than the previous model of that factor. Look previous the MFG phantasm, and much too usually, it isn’t.
Rifling by way of the specs doesn’t flip up any clear causes for this lack of efficiency acquire; the RTX 5070’s CUDA core depend is available in at 6144, placing it merely in-between the RTX 4070 (5888) and the RTX 4070 Tremendous (7168), however each base and increase clock speeds have been raised to compensate. VRAM, in the meantime, stays at 12GB, however with a swap from GDDR6X to GDDR7 that confers considerably extra bandwidth. Then there’s the facility score, which each the delayed Founders Version and this right here triple-fan PNY GeForce RTX 5070 OC set at 250W – 50W greater than an entry-level RTX 4070 Tremendous. It appears to be like, and sounds, like a good generational replace.
And but…
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 overview: 4K benchmarks
Whereas the RTX 5070 does make the lower as a 4K contender, surpassing 60fps in most Extremely-quality video games with out upscaling, the one time it produced a visibly sooner framerate was in Cyberpunk 2077. Elsewhere, it solely outperforms the RTX 4070 Tremendous by a scant handful of single-digit frames per second, and repeatedly loses out to the non-Tremendous RTX 4070 Ti within the course of.
Clearly, only a few potential consumers are going to be upgrading instantly from final 12 months’s RTX 4070 Tremendous to the RTX 5070, and the newest mannequin does a minimum of make for a meaty enchancment on the RTX 3070. Bother is, that enchancment has already been made within the final era, and for costs that – even for those who’re fortunate sufficient to seek out an RTX 5070 in inventory beneath £600 – are possible drop a lot sooner, particularly the place the secondhand market is worried.
It’s additionally value addressing a selected declare, made by Nvidia throughout their unique RTX 50 collection announcement, that the RTX 5070 delivers “RTX 4090 efficiency” with MFG. That is, relying on how beneficiant you wish to be, both missing in context or full tosh. Whereas it’s true that, as an example, 4x MFG can drag the RTX 5070 to 71fps in a totally path-traced Alan Wake 2, that’s solely equal or sooner than the RTX 4090 for those who deny the older GPU its personal instruments. Certain sufficient, it solely wants DLSS 3’s old-timey, 2x body era to common 82fps on in any other case equivalent settings. Briefly, the one manner the RTX 5070 is actually shifting on the similar tempo because the RTX 4090 is that if they’re in the identical supply van.
You possibly can nonetheless contemplate MFG to be the RTX 5070’s occasion trick, although at 4K particularly, it’s not as a lot of a difference-maker as it’s on on burlier playing cards just like the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080. In each Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2, the RTX 4070 joins its 40-series rivals in being unable to churn out playable path tracing efficiency on DLSS High quality; in actual fact, within the latter, it’s narrowly the slowest of the lot. Consequently, when 4x MFG kicks in, it’s producing the next quantity in a framerate counter however isn’t truly serving to the video games to run and smoother or extra responsively than on the DLSS 3-limited 40 collection fashions. So far as your PC is aware of, it’s nonetheless solely operating at 26/21fps, and all of the AI-generated frames on this planet received’t do away with the sluggish really feel that aiming and digital camera management will endure in these situations.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 overview: 1440p benchmarks
1440p is a extra comfy setting for the RTX 5070’s body gen tech, although its issues with overfamiliar efficiency stay. If something, it’s extra bothersome right here, as the upper framerates make it even tougher to inform a naked-eye distinction between this and its predecessors.
In Murderer’s Creed Mirage, the RTX 4070 Tremendous even finishes forward, if solely be a single body, whereas even the video games that the RTX 5070 does comparatively effectively in (Cyberpunk 2077, F1 24) solely see an uptick of 10% or so. There’s a simultaneous gap-narrowing with the RTX 5070 Ti, suggesting you don’t must stretch to the Ti model for high quality Quad HD, and once more, anybody upgrading from the RTX 3070 will take pleasure in a sizeable pace increase. Nonetheless, these advantages may apply to the RTX 4070 Tremendous simply as a lot because the RTX 5070.
The identical can’t be mentioned, in equity, for body gen efficiency. Though these assessments recommend the RTX 5070 is in actual fact barely worse at coping with path tracing/full ray tracing than these pesky RTX 40 GPUs, in contrast to at 4K, it is ready to produce sufficient pre-generation frames to assist a workable utility of 4x MFG.
I’m not saying that is an enough substitute for historically rendered frames, however a minimum of at this decision, you’ll be able to type of see the place Nvidia is coming from. Spared from the necessity to compensate for sub-30fps framerates, body gen is free to easily shine up the visible smoothness of already adequately-running video games, accurately.
Nonetheless, it’s additionally laborious to not peer over at these towering RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 bars, questioning why the usual RTX 5070 couldn’t simply do some extra within the standard rendering division.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 overview: 1080p benchmarks
The drop to an excellent much less demanding display rez does little to boost the RTX 5070’s worth proposition. But once more it’s haunted by the Ghosts of XX70 GPUs Previous, particularly in Murderer’s Creed Mirage, the place it repeats its embarrassing loss. It does acquire just a few additional frames over the RTX 4070 Tremendous in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, however then that’s already operating so quick that you just’d want a 300Hz monitor and downright inhuman commentary expertise to understand them in motion.
That each one means we should return to the world of maxed-out lighting results and AI body era looking for a comfort prize. Like at 1440p, the RTX 5070 begins off inexplicably worse than the RTX 4070 Tremendous when path tracing in concerned, although in each video games it nonetheless kinds itself a strong sufficient base to use 4x MFG with out enter lag coating your PC innards in treacle.
You’ll need to forgive me for not sharing these outcomes with the type of bubbly enthusiasm that multicoloured bar charts deserve. I do know it’s not just like the RTX 5070 has regressed to the purpose that it’s a foul GPU within the basic sense – get it at RRP, like this PNY mannequin prices, and it’s nonetheless a positive multi-discipline graphics card that may comfortably play something exterior of probably the most brutalising 4K settings. And what I used to be saying earlier, concerning the RTX 4070 Tremendous going cheaper sooner? Reader, I’m afraid that was conjecture. Proper now, these are nonetheless on sale within the £600-£700 vary, and whereas loads of board accomplice RTX 5070s will certainly fill the identical house, if these two GPUs value the identical then there’s no compelling cause to stay with the older one. There’s possibly an argument in favour of the RTX 4070 Tremendous’s energy effectivity – I measured it peaking at 219W throughout my assessments, versus 251W on the RTX 5070 – however for all its shortcomings, I’d somewhat have MFG than a 30W saving.
Even so, it’s additionally fully truthful and cheap to count on some type of significant, not wholly AI-reliant enchancment from every new era. The RTX 5070 merely doesn’t ship, and I’m truthfully a bit of apprehensive that if we merely shrug and settle for that, body era actually would be the solely manner that future GPUs hassle to improve “efficiency”. Even when, as this very card’s 4K path tracing outcomes present, such an strategy is insufficient when the video games facet of the trade continues to ask increasingly of your {hardware}.
This overview relies on a retail unit supplied by the producer.
